(Berlin, October 26, 2006) During the third quarter, Deutsche Bahn AG continued its positive business development achieved during the first half of the year. Transport performance, revenues and profit continued to rise. Significant growth in passenger and freight transport - as well as in international logistics - made a decisive contribution to the 19 percent – or 3.5 billion euros – higher revenues, bringing them to a total of 22 billion euros during the first nine months of 2006 (first nine months of 2005: 18.5 billion euros). On a comparable basis, i.e. excluding the recently acquired logistics company BAX Global, the increase in revenues was 7.9 percent.
The operating profit, or EBIT (Earnings before Interest and Taxes) continued to rise, and after just nine months, currently stands at around 1.5 billion euros, well above the total for the whole of the 2005 financial year. And the fourth quarter is traditionally the strongest for DB. “With this consistently positive development, we will be continuing our success story in the 2006 financial year. It will be the best year in the history of Deutsche Bahn,” said CEO and Chairman of the Management Board Hartmut Mehdorn.
In the first nine months, transport performance in rail passenger transport increased by 4 percent, to 55.8 billion passenger kilometers. This meant that we were able to expand our market share in what is overall a stagnating passenger transport market. Transport performance in rail freight transport increased by 11 percent to 72.1 billion ton kilometers. Rail transport in – including DB’s competitors – showed a double-digit growth rate in both rail passenger and rail freight transport.